This 1988 300e W124 in pine green belongs one of my mates at the 202 club of Indonesia. This car used to be his father’s daily driver from 1988 to 2008 until his father passed away. Now, the car serves as his mother’s daily transport. Due to sentimental reasons the family is never going to sell this car. I first got acquainted with this beautiful machine when I was working on my friend’s blue black w202 (I’ve posted the work on that car in the forum). Since then I’d been wanting to work on the car. Last Friday we met up and discussed what could be done to the car. Our discussion resulted in a 2 step correction job to be carried the next following 2 days. Due to the fact that the car was used my my friend’s mother, I could only began working on the car at 11 AM until 6 PM that Saturday. On Sunday I managed to work on the car from 10 AM til around 8.30 PM. So total time spent on the exterior of the car was about 17 hours. My friend requested me to skip the roof due to his plans in repainting it this week to solve some of the rust that had started to sprung up on that area. Tools used Megs apc+ with various brushes DeWalt 849 Cheap Chinese made rotary -I use this one for the wool compounding since it came with a large BP- LC backing plates (my 5inch BP got ruined on this job, gotta get a new one) 3M Blended wool pad Uber Yellow LC CCS White LC CCS Green LC CCS Black LSP of choice was 2 coats of Collinite 845 Here is how the car looked when I got there on Saturday (after claying). Plenty of swirl and water oxidation marks accumulated throughout the car’s 23 years life. The paint was mostly original sans the passenger side rear wing and some areas of the bonnet (u can tell by the size of the orange peel on those areas). Here are some more shots under some light to better highlight the condition of the paint Looking at the state of water etchings and swirl marks present and after spending some time on a test panel, this was my plan of attack A. Multiple hits with S17 on 3M blended wool pad to get most of the defects out (due to time constraints and the owner’s wish for giving room for future paint corrections, and also the lack of PTG, some of the deeper RDS were still left on the paint). On some panels (like the bonnet and bootlid) it took me as many as 8 hits with the wool pad to get the water marks off. B. Refine the paint using Scholl S40 on LC Green pad (actually what I wished to use was Uber greens, but so far I haven’t had any luck in getting them here). I chose the green pad over whites as the site indicates that the LC green is supposed to be somewhat of a hybrid polishing/finishing pad, so I hope it would be sufficient in removing the swirls left by the wool compounding process yet soft enough for me to add a little more gloss and wetness to the paint at later stages of buffing (I’m not entirely sure if this was the best option, so Scholl users your inputs is welcome). Here are how some panels of the car looked like after the above two steps are completed (without any lsp yet). Again I’m sorry for not bringing my dslr with me, so the pics might be a little out of the desired focus at times. A 50-50 shot of the bootlid Bootlid correted Bonnet corrected (sorry for the poor lighting) See the rather large orange peel on the bonnet? A rather sorry attempt at making a reflection shot at 8.30 PM with a pocket camera When the job was finished I neither had the time nor the right tools to do a proper after shot of the car but the owner promised me to take some pictures the next day, I’m still waiting for those to come. Thanks for viewing And also big thanks to Ken (911Fanatic) for his invaluable input and tireless response to my late night PMs. Cheers, Bob
That paint looked like it needed to be rescued! Good save, mate You could always follow up with S17 on a white/black LC, to remove the holograms and swirl marks from the compounding stage.
ah Porta! here is the man that I really need to thank! Thank you for ur inputs on using scholl products Porta, now im able to do a one step with s 17 without needing any clean up with s40 , as you can see on my other thread. Good man, you are, mate!
Btw since we're discussing the products which one of these, that u think would be a better option to follow up wool compounding? (If constraints allow us to do only a 2 step on the car instead of a full 3 step) - Scholl S40 on LC white / green : my argument is that this combo might allow me to clean up marring from the compounding stage, and also jewell the paint in one go. Or - Scholl S17 on LC White : this might have better cut to make sure that all the mess from the compounding process is taken care of, in a swift manner
